Conventional beverage dispensers can pour a beverage by combining a syrup, sweetener, and/or water. These conventional beverage dispensers generally offer a finite variety of beverage selections that incorporate different kinds of syrups. The offered beverage selections can include branded and non-branded beverage selections. As an example, a single conventional dispenser using several different kinds of syrup might be able to offer choices of COCA-COLA™, DIET COCA-COLA™, SPRITE™, and a few other branded or non-branded beverage selections.
Prior to operating a beverage dispenser at a location, such as in a restaurant or at a gas station, the beverage dispenser is typically configured or calibrated. The calibration can be utilized to set the types of beverages that are to be dispensed by the beverage dispenser and parameters associated with the dispense of each beverage. In some conventional beverage dispensers, a portion control dispense can be configured or calibrated for each beverage. Typically, a conventional portion control dispense actuates one or more solenoids, switches and/or valves associated with a selected beverage for a predetermined period of time, thereby causing a predetermined amount of syrup, sweetener, and/or water to be dispensed for the selected beverage.
For conventional beverage dispensers, a portion control dispense is often calibrated for each beverage selection. Additionally, for each beverage selection, the portion control dispense is often calibrated individually for a plurality of respective cup sizes that may be dispensed by the conventional beverage dispensers. In order to calibrate portion control dispenses for each beverage selection, a programming mode for the beverage dispenser is typically entered into. Then, the dispense of a particular beverage selection can be manually controlled for a particular cup size, and the time for the dispense can be determined and stored for future portion control dispenses. This process can then be repeated for the remaining cup sizes for the beverage. Additionally, it is often desirable to double check the settings for the beverage to ensure that the programmed portion control dispenses are correct.
One problem with the calibration of portion control dispenses for conventional beverage dispensers is that each beverage selection is calibrated individually. Additionally, each cup size offered for a particular beverage selection is calibrated individually. The individual calibration and programming of conventional beverage dispensers can be referred to as empirical calibration or empirical programming due to the manual operations involved. These conventional calibrations techniques are often very time consuming. The time needed to calibrate the beverage dispenser further increases as the number of beverage selections for the beverage dispenser increases. Additionally, these conventional calibration techniques waste a large amount of syrup and other beverage components as at least one dispense is typically performed to calibrate each cup size for each beverage selection.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved systems and methods for providing portion control programming for a beverage dispenser.